The Banned Books Scam

“Banned Book Week” is September 18-24, and my local public library (the Morse Institute Library) has let its freak flag fly and got out ahead of the curve by starting its promotion early. The display was promptly praised on a local Facepalm™ group, where it received an overwhelmingly (though not entirely) positive response. I had to admit to finding it rather embarrassing. “Freedom is reading a banned book” sounds like the philosophical musings of an over-indulged 14-year old planning a coup out at the vacation house to overthrow the patriarc...

Dante Meets the Moralists

Somehow summoning the wherewithal to ping my poor, neglected blog, and recalling in particular (if vaguely) my next-to-last entry, I implore anyone out there who is regretting not taking the time to study Dante to get on the stick before the moralists of the Order of Perpetual Outrage crush your obviously sadistic fantasies in the name of tolerance. Why? The Guardian is reporting that the UN-related Italian “human rights” advisory group Gerush92 is calling for Italy’s school system to eliminate Dante’s Divine Comedy from its curricula, claiming that it i...

Out, Off, End… Goodbye

Quote of the Day: West Virginia Democrat Senator John (Jay) Rockefeller IV: I hunger for quality news. I’m tired of the Right and the Left. There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX, and to, to MSNBC: “Out, off, end… Goodbye.”  [It would] be a big favor to political discourse, our ability to do our work here in Congress — and to the American people to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government, and in their  – more importantly – in their future. (U.S. ...

The Heart of the Matter (part 2)

My last post ended up focusing on the need to understand the nature of the problem of pornography, but what I’m really trying to get at is understanding how people are shaped by the ideas they encounter and absorb, how this is particularly true of children, and how this generality might be applied to the concrete situations parents find themselves in when confronted with the need to make decisions regarding their children’s involvement in pop culture, with its attendant mores. I take it for granted that everything we encounter in life, includ...

The Heart of the Matter (part 1)

It seems to me there is little more critical for a parent to do than to work to understand exactly why and how things - and the ideas they convey - are dangerous for our children, so that decisions can be made and guidelines set that are based on sound principles, so they can be applied consistently, and eventually understood rationally by the children, which will allow them to likewise make their own principled decisions based on a sound understanding of the nature of the threats the world presents to them.